Inspiring

Question

We have to stop associating all VR with motion controls...

168 replies
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Things I see Vive-owners saying on social media on a near-daily basis:

"The Vive is the only real VR because it has motion controls!"

"Without motion controls, VR is just a monitor on your face"

"Why would I play this game if it doesn't have motion controls in it?"

"This game is incredible because motion controls! (no other reason given)"

"You can't get immersion without motion controls."

"I'll buy anything with motion controls in it!"

Things I see my fellow Rifters saying here:

"Oh yeah well the Rift WILL be the best AFTER we get motion controls!"

"These games are fun I guess but they'd be better if they used Touch"

"Every game I want to see in the future involves motion controls."

Things I remember Wii-owners saying:

"I can't wait until the Wii comes out, motion controls are going to revolutionize gaming!"

"Oh wow, Wii Sports is the most incredible game I've ever played! Motion controls, yay!"

"Huh... motion controls sure got old fast. All these developers just shoe-horned them in unnecessarily thinking we'd buy anything involving the wii-mote, instead of actually making the games good."

"All these motion-control games are the same. I'm not buying any more."

"How much store credit can I get for this Wii? You say you're already overstocked?"

This pattern worries me. Thanks to the Vive craze, a LOT of people are now looking at VR headsets as just an accessory TO motion control gaming, rather than the other way around. So what's going to happen to VR after everyone inevitably gets bored of motion controls again? Will the VR platforms thrive even after people become jaded with motion controls? Wil people jump ship from the Vive to the Rift, because we have content that doesn't rely entirely on motion controls to be fun? Or will they just conclude that all VR was a fad?

Or will motion controls actually survive past the "novelty" stage this time around? Will developers have learned from the Wii's short time in the lime-light (and the utter failure of Kinect) and actually go to the effort of making GOOD games that just happen to involve motion controls, or will they flood the VR platforms with glorified tech demos and half-assed shovelware that rely entirely on the novelty of motion controls, after seeing how easily impressed consumers are with such content on the Vive?

Believe me, I'm as eager as the rest of you to get my hands on Touch, but much like the people raving about the Vive now, and everyone hyped for the Wii when it first came out, this excitement is based on what could potentially be rather than anything we know for sure. The future of the entire VR industry shouldn't rely on whether our expectations for motion controls are met, because then if motion controls prove to be a short-lived novelty, VR would die with them. People need to see that VR is amazing with OR without motion controls, so that it will survive even if that proves to be a fad.

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J

JohnMaddux

Participant

Thanks. That's good to know. Yeah, my guess towards crutches is someone will generally sit down to play, but others will be more determined to stand, so it's good to have options.

T

ThreeDeeVision

Inspiring

I would actually recommend playing Windlands seated until you get a feel for the swinging action, it can really mess with your balance when you brace for G-forces that don't actually exist :). I have played Windlands since the Beta came out for DK2, so I have gotten used to the movements over time.

J

JohnMaddux

Participant

Yeah, the last time I played it was while it was in beta. I was used to it by the time I quit, but it's been so long I'm sure I'll need another adjustment period. :)

C

CrashFuAuthor

Inspiring

ThreeDeeVision said:

@mane43 The title of this OP is "We have to stop associating ALL VR with motion controls". That blanket statement is why I posted, because I disagree with that point of view completely.

(snip)

The gamepad works great for a lot of VR applications, but that doesn't mean we should completely disregard what hand tracking and hand presence can bring to the table.

I think you overlooked a key word in the thread title, which was kind of important to the statement I was trying to make.

"ALL"

I was saying that 100% of VR should not be based on motion controls.

And VR should not become explicitly defined as "A program in which you use motion controls to interact with objects in 3D".

By agreeing that there are applications in which the gamepad works great, it sounds like you agree with my statement, unless you think those applications are just some kind of stepping stone that WILL BE 100% replaced by motion controls in the near future?

It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

A

Anonymous

Ok, I have seen the words 'motion controls' and 'tracked controls' and I have used them interchangeably, which is wrong, I see the difference now.

Many input devices have a place in VR, like others have said, that are the right tool for the right application; Steering wheel, HOTAS, Gamepad, Touch, Wands, etc...

What I believe is a MUST for ALL VR is TRACKED CONTROLS. I think every one of those input devices needs to be somehow tracked into the VR world to give the most immersion.

Just imagine if you can see your actual HOTAS, Steering wheel, Gamepad, in VR - this will make you believe you are living in the VR world even more.

Some games however would need an option so you can make the controller transparent if you don't want it to appear in the game; say like playing Lucky's Tale, you might not want to see your controller floating in the game. But even using a tracked gamepad, with a laser shooting out from it like the Vive wands to select items in menus would be acceptable to me for playing games that are better suited with a classic gamepad - it would just allow for more natural ways of controlling the game.

Actually going back to Lucky's Tale, I think it would enhance the game if you could interact with a tracked gamepad. Certain parts of the level would change the image of the gamepad into a functioning object, so a bridge, or pad to raise Lucky Up, a shield to help deflect objects towards lucky, or whatever. At the same time, you still use the controller to perform all the classic controls.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

tranceology3 said:

What I believe is a MUST for ALL VR is TRACKED CONTROLS. I think every one of those input devices needs to be somehow tracked into the VR world to give the most immersion.

Just imagine if you can see your actual HOTAS, Steering wheel, Gamepad, in VR - this will make you believe you are living in the VR world even more.

Strongly disagree. The brain doesn't need to bring the limitations of the human body in to an artificial world in order to give the most immersion. That doesn't even make sense from a biological standpoint, since limbs on the human body simply send messages to the brain, and the brain sends messages back to control them. Virtual Reality allows us to engage in that same process, only it removes the human body as a barrier, thus giving the brain much more freedom and power.

Here's a hypothetical:

Imagine if we all suddenly developed telepathic powers in real life. With just a mere thought, we can move objects around without ever touching them. We can even levitate our bodies and travel in the air without our feet ever touching the ground.

What @tranceology3 is arguing is that unless you are moving with your feet, a car, or an airplane, then you are not really immersed in the travel activities controlled by your brain alone. Unless you stand up and walk over to the table and use your hands to life up a cup, instead of using your minds ability to cause the cup to levitate over to you, then you aren't really doing anything convincing.

If humans developed telepathy then it would be forward evolution to everyone except tracked-controller fanatics.

Anyone who believes that we "need" tracked-controllers instead of the power of the human brain is arguing in favor of reverse-evolution; backwards thinking.

A

Anonymous

@zenbane What you said had NOTHING to do with what I said. I never mentioned anything about my body being tracked, everything I said that needs to be tracked is physical non-biological objects, transported into the VR world.

Honestly, I think you are the one person that clearly has no idea what VR is trying to accomplish - either that, or you are the true definition of playing devils advocate, and most times, you just get lost in your words and nothing makes sense.

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

tranceology3 said:

Honestly, I think you are the one person that clearly has no idea what VR is trying to accomplish

Every single HMD on the market prevents the eyes from seeing the outside world, so that all interaction is focused on the human brain. That is where all my arguments come from. Yet you continue to state that physical controllers are a "MUST for ALL VR."

You can say that I have no idea what VR is trying to accomplish, but you certainly can't prove it. In contrast, I can easily prove that you have not the slightest clue what you're talking about...

Virtual Reality Therapy for mental disorders:

1) Defined
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality_therapy

2) Mental treatment
https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/virtual-reality-therapy-treating-the-global-mental-health-crisis/

3) Formal organizations
http://www.virtuallybetter.com/
http://www.vrphobia.com/

4) Real-world usage
http://www.techinsider.io/how-virtual-reality-is-used-for-ptsd-and-anxiety-therapy-2016-1

You slip on a headset and headphones and all of a sudden see and can move around in a three dimensional world, wherever the program is set. You could explore an underwater world or ride a roller coaster; you could experience the very thing that triggers your debilitating anxiety — all while guided by a professional to help you get past that fear.

Quick, @tranceology3 - go tell all those doctors, scientists, and patients that everything they are doing is wrong because they don't have tracked controllers lol

A

Anonymous

@zenbane have you not played Oculus Dreamdeck in Rift - the experience with the Mirror, where you can look back and see your head? Notice how the head is tracked 1:1 cause you have a tracked controller strapped to your face. So what you are saying is in that scene it does not bring any immersion, because we are sending a signal from our head to our eyes to our brain? Funny, I wonder why Oculus even included that part?

I mean, we should starting saying VR should not be associated with 3D visuals, cause it's just signals from the eyes to the brain right? We need to skip all this, and just put ourselves into a dreamstate and let the mind do ALL the work if we want the best VR?

Zenbane

Honored Contributor

Yes that one device sitting on top of your head, which hopefully houses the brain, should definitely be tracked.

However, you extended your definition for every single form of input device, "I think every one of those input devices needs to be somehow tracked into the VR world to give the most immersion."

The response of every single input device needs to be tracked, but the input device mechanism itself doesn't need to be tracked. There are developments happening right now that are allowing the human eye itself to perform many actions in Virtual Reality. We will be able to look at something in VR and interact with it. According to you this will be less immersive because we need to either move it with our hands and see it happening; or we apparently need to see our own eyeballs in VR when its happening lol

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